ALASKA AND GLOBAL WARMING

You can see from the following article that Alaska is also warming up and their climate is changing rapidly:

David Perlman,

Chronicle Science Editor

Friday, December 17, 2004

Glaciers throughout Alaska are shrinking more and more rapidly, and scientists comparing old photos taken up to a century ago with digital images made during climbing expeditions today say the pictures provide the most dramatic evidence yet that global
warming is real.

And it's not only the glaciers reflecting the climate change. Everywhere on the treeless tundra north of the jagged slopes of Alaska's Brooks Range, explosive bursts of vegetation -- willows, alders, birch and many shrubs -- are thriving
where permafrost once kept the tundra surface frozen in winter.

Two geophysicists and a government geologist who spend much of their working lives exploring changes in the Arctic displayed dozens of photographs from the thousands in their files Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San
Francisco.

"You don't need science to prove the point," said Matt Nolan of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. "This evidence is visual, and it's real.

"All the glaciers in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are retreating from their most extended positions thousands of years ago, and the only scientific explanation for their retreat is a change in climate. There's no doubt at all, and the loss of
glacial volume is accelerating."

Bruce Molnia, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, has gathered more than 200 glacier photos taken from the 1890s to the late 1970s and has visited more than 1,000 Alaskan glaciers in the past four years to photograph them from
precisely the same locations and pointing in the same directions as the older ones.

Where masses of ice were once surging down wide mountain passes into the sea, or were hanging from high and perilously steep faces, the surfaces in Molnia's images now stand bare. What remains from many of the retreating glaciers are
stretches of open water or broad, snow-free layers of sediment.

"And as the glaciers disappear," Molnia said, "you get the amazing appearance of vegetation." "The rapid melting of the glaciers, the increasing vegetation in the high Arctic and the invasions of insects where insects were once unknown are
all happening," Molnia said.

The increasing pace of change is clear in the glaciers he has explored, Molnia said. Many photos he has recovered from the 1890s, the 1940s and the 1970s show how fast the glaciers have been retreating;

Geophysicist Ken Tape, of the University of Washington, has been exploring the Brooks Range in the far north of Alaska as well as the wide stretches of treeless tundra between the mountains and the Beaufort Sea along the state's north coast.

The growth of shrubs across the tundra has increased by 40 percent in less than 60 years, Tape said, "and that perturbation is certainly due to the changing climate."

Shrinking glaciers evidence of global warming
Differences seen by looking at photos from 100 years ago

A photo taken in 1906 shows the calving terminus of Carroll Glacier at the head of Queen Inlet. No vegetation is visible. Photo courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey

A 2004 photograph shows that the terminus of Carroll Glacier has changed to a stagnant, debris-covered glacier. U.S. Geological Survey photo by Bruce Molnia. Notice the vegetation.

A photo taken in 1899 shows the shoreline near Muir Point on Muir Inlet with no vegetation visible along Alaska's Glacier Bay. Photo courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey

By the time this photo was taken in 2003 the Muir and Adams glaciers have disappeared, and extensive vegetation is visible. National Park Service photo by Ronald D. Karpilo